Published on: 5/7/2010
Love's Death Roller(s)

Ah, to do the greatest of these with the greatest of ease…
I am worried full of sick over love. I sit on a stool at a gaudy
bar mulling over what I've learned from life as I iron myself
to face the words I might hear from her beckoning, red lips:

Too much familiarity with "the facts" and you'll have faith.
Too much success at going nowhere and you'll have hope.
Too much losing yourself to the gators and you'll find love.

In the face of my experience, I ask
no stay of execution, & am fully
prepared to become remains, if
she rends my dreams with her
real indifference to my desires.

So, tonight's the night, & I look so good:
My eyes resemble the more fragile craters
in a used fallout shelter where vultures sleep
because I am so tired of working hard for
love that is an alley full of groggy, lost dogs
that lie dreaming of old winos freezing before
the sun, or anyone can make them move on.

Alcohol is a dog's
best friend, and
man forgets that
the same way I do
at this pub chewing
roaches, swilling bathtub
gin, and swallowing the
little umbrellas they put
in margaritas to work my
way up to downing an open
parachute when I ought to be
braving the atrocious gator pit
of my throbbing heart because
it is a Friday and I've serious
romancing to accomplish.

Trudging through the moldering,
squalid green swamp is almost as
much fun as treading the moiling
waters that have an alizarin tint. I
can't say enough about threading
my sludge soiled sockfeet through
the noose dangling off the lone,
forgotten tree in the middle of this
abysmal, lizard moat of my pumping
love pump.

Swaying in the air,
I would be alone
hitting myself hot
with my best thoughts
if not for the matchmaking
alligators that have bloody dirt
to shovel on me, and that simply will
not behave! They can still smell the beef
bag (that I wedged in my mouth) in spite of
the briefcases of acne placing tiny amounts
of insufferable pressure on their big, swollen noses.

I could overcome my trust issues by
clasping one of their scaly tales in a
lethal embrace. Instead, I am trying
to be a fighter. I bob & weave to buy
myself some real time in my hollow
noggin to draft a plan to settle the
bitter theater war I am waging against
flowers over the loveliest lovely lady to
ever be. Each time I deliver my amorous
monologue as the gators' buttoned jaws
whistle open, & as she starts running
towards me to sever the tie bound to
unite me with my matchmakers, those
goddamn flowers crowd the stage to wave
her off with their intimidating pistils!

I have been butting heads with these
flowers for so long my head is covered
in bulbs. How hard is it to take a girl to
the movies & surprise her with a beatific
bouquet? The gators drive me up a tree.
I am Okay in the tree. It gives me time to
arrange these "flowers" somewhere in this
unwieldy gaggle of odoriferous orchids, yet
I am scared to the marrow that I will never
find that beautiful spot for them, & I'll have
to spend a few more torturous seconds debating
if this lady is the type of pulchritudinous person
who would accept some wildflowers from my hands,
or if she is the kind of girl who'd ram a knitting needle
into the bargain bin pin cushion of my pounding heart
as I bow to the applauding jaws of the gators that slither
by the judgment Daisies lying still on the stage whispering:

She loves you not.

Published on: 1/19/2010
Post-Modern Apiary

My colony mimics a beehive,
except I have not waggled with
anyone who wasn't born a drone.
Each morning we set our buzzes to the
same humming frequency because
we want to feel the therapeutic static
while we bumble through the entire
calendar on emotional cruise control.
We've enough honey to feed all of
us deep into the paradise of sterile
sameness because what could be
blander than the unsweetened ol'
repetition of honey all bloomin' day?

Gaze around. We're tawdry exhibits
in a viscerally retarded wax museum.
This place gives me the hives real bad.